Monday, November 03, 2008

boom

Last week, Amanda dreamt that a hundred internet weirdoes descended on a small turkey farm in rural Maryland and wreaked havoc with impractical shoes and fruit cannons.

A sign indicated there were 15,000 turkeys in there. 15,000 filthy, disgusting turkeys.

On Saturday, we tried to make her hallucination a reality. Unfortunately for her, our car showed up an hour early, didn’t get lost and made all the farmers sigh with our adorableness. The people who did end up making to Thurmont showed up hours later and missed all my inspiring feats. It wasn’t what she had in mind, exactly, but it did sate her appetite for mayhem for at least a week or two.

Winter Brook Farm has two things going for it. First, there’s the corn maze. Corn mazes are cloyingly sentimental holdovers from a bygone time when the thought of getting lost in a field was terrifying for your parents. And I have to admit that when you’re a few hundred yards in and there’s nothing but silence and cornstalk rustling it can be a bit spooky. But then you remember you can just Kool-Aid Man your way out of there because it’s only a field of corn. Sort fun, I guess.

The real draws to Winter Brook Farm are the two modified tractor/bulldozer/howitzers that shoot pumpkins and apples hundreds of yards with unpredictably explosive results. I’ve shot belt fed M60s at old Jeep carcasses doused in gasoline that caused giant scorching fire balls after a single round. This was better.

The double barreled apple cannon blew stuff up real good, especially if knocking over bleach bottles is your thing. But for my money, I wanted to inflict more damage than your average middle school bully with a sack of rotten produce.

You could actually feel the pumpkins impact when they exploded on the boat or car or lawnmower. It was even impressive when Amanda missed the target 20 feet high and her pumpkin came to rest a quarter mile later. I think she got and extra 30 yards off a cart bounce but it was a remarkable shot none the less.

I’m not saying that I’m the greatest pumpkin cannon shot ever but I did take out 55 gallon drum from 75 yards away. If only there was a way to use these powers for good.